The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Ive been having trouble with Skyrim for a long time now. Trouble started a few months ago and when I posted, no one seemed to be able to help. Thought I'd give it time, try a few things, and then throw the problem back out and see if anyone has any fixes.

First, whenever I started any Bethesda game, it said it had to check my settings and started the game at medium. Normally, I played Ultra in Skyrim, so I thought that was weird.

After loading the game up, it has horrible lag. Even looking around has a delay.

I had this problem forever ago, and it was just my computer specs. So it might just be on the computer that your running. Having a clean hard drive will NOT make the game run any faster. It just matters on how fast your computer is.

I would suggest getting Razer Game Booster. It didn't improve much, but every little bit helps, right? beyond that i can't think of anything else.

Could a save file be corrupted in such a way that causes lag, but allows the game to be some what playable?

Try a new game and see if the problem is still there. If not, it's your save.

But considering your launcher sets you on Medium, it's probably not. Are you sure the game detects your card correctly? I guess you're on a laptop since you're talking of Dell: maybe your integrated chipset takes priority.

So when I got it to stop crashing immediately after going outside, the old save started lagging the same way the newer save was, but only in wide open areas. Areas the size of a small room with no other actors in view and when Im not facing towards any other actor causes no lag.....

And after disabling all mods, I just CtD every time I start a new game.....

How old is your computer? Look in device manager, that should have the specs. If your graphics card has a low ram that might be the problem. If the graphics card is an older one it might just be giving out. Had the same problem on an older laptop that had been a gamong one, the graphics card was giving out and was making the game lag and crash.

Why would it start giving out after playing the game on high settings for so long?

And why would it affect multiple games at the same time?

Trying a few others though, I do get a little more lag on stuff like Batman:AC and such, so it isn;t just Bethesda games, but Im still confused as to why they lag now when they used to be completely fine.

Are you reusing the same save-files that you removed the mods from ?That could be your problem.

IN Skyrim, you can not actually remove mods that have scripts; so if you do a mass deactivation of script heavy mods and try to continue playing those save-files, then it will most likely have problems.

Another cause could be that your computer is just not up to the task of playing SKyrim [you state the fps is fine in small, enclosed areas; but it lags in larger/open areas].